Yesterday
a story came out about Ohio Republican Secretary of State candidate Greg Hartmann
insulting a rape victim and failing to prosecute the man who eventually killed her. More details keep have come out on this and it looks worse and worse.
After reading this new timeline of events, I felt sick.
It looks like Hartmann was all along "juggling" a second job - covering up a massive Republican money laundering scheme, when he should have been doing his real job - keeping people like Tracy Walker safe.
Progress Ohio's
new summary hits on so many new disturbing aspects that I don't know where to start
For one on June 6, 2002,
three weeks after Hartmann dropped the charges against the rapist, he attacked Tracy Walker again!
Where is Hartmann when this is going on? Well apparently he was so busy covering up for another corrupt Ohio politican, that by June he had used up all his vacation days for the year and was fraudulently billing the county for more.
I think it is a pretty fair assumption thats what he was busy with given that another three weeks later, he is demoted to part-time so he can spend more time playing politician.
And theres much more that I haven't really digested yet. I hope reporters are looking into this.
For the record, I don't think it's fair to nitpick every case a lawyer or judge had worked on. The original story really struck a cord with me for two reasons:
* Hartmann's comments about the victim were disgusting (she didn't give him the "courtesy" of explaining why a battered woman might be scared to testify against an abusive partner).
* There will always be cases where a criminal goes on to do another crime. But in this case, the judge correctly predicted when Hartmann dropped the charges that the abusive spouse would kill her.
But given this new information... I really hope Walker's family sues Hartmann for every dollar he's worth. And has an easier time collecting than Pepsi....